


So Be It

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Coda, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s11e07 Plush, M/M, Season/Series 11
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:35:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5268104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You shouldn’t be so hard on him,” Cas says, not unkindly. “After all, you prayed to me.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	So Be It

**Author's Note:**

> Companion piece: [x](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5268089)

Dean spends most of the drive back snapping at Sam.

There’s no excuse for it, he knows, not the stress of the hunt or the late hour, not even his annoyance over the fact that Sam is going to keep praying in spite of everything. He does it anyway, though, until they both wind up sitting in tense, sullen silence.

If he’s being honest -- which he _is_ trying to do, now that he has the choice -- what he’s feeling isn’t simply annoyance. Something burns in his gut, so hot and incessant that at first he thinks it’s anger. That’s not quite it, though. He realizes, as he drives in the dark, Sam staring out the window into the empty night, that he’s jealous. That’s what it is, pure and ugly. He’s jealous of Sam.

The thing is, he remembers a time when he still believed. He had prayed desperately for help, before, back when he was still clinging to the last shreds of whatever bits of hope had rubbed off on him after so much time spent with Sam and his unshakable faith. He had gathered up every ounce of conviction he could muster and turned it into a trembling supplication, and all the supposedly all-knowing, all-powerful God had managed to do was be a colossal fucking disappointment.

He kind of hates himself for it, sometimes, at the depth of his own discouragement. Sometimes he lies awake at night, staring into the blank darkness of his bedroom ceiling, and reaches back into his memory for Layla’s words, the ones she had spoken to him back before he had any faith to lose. He can still hear her, can still feel her calm conviction as she said, “I guess, if you’re gonna have faith, you can’t just have it when the miracles happen. You have to have it when they don’t.” It haunts him, sometimes, makes his gut twist with guilt over her, over his own weakness in the face of her strength, over everything.

The thing is, though, he’s lived this long and had so much shit shoveled onto him and he’s never, ever witnessed a single miracle. Frankly, he feels like expecting him to have the least bit of faith at this point is asking for far too much. He’s pretty damn sure that no matter how desperately he still wants to believe in some greater good, he can’t manage it.

But Sam, apparently, can. And Dean kind of hates that, too.

Okay, yeah, apparently he _is_ a little angry. So sue him.

He’s still seething by the time they get back to the bunker. It doesn’t help matters any when Sam takes off with nothing more than a terse “I’m beat. ‘Night,” but Dean can’t blame him, really. He knows they’re both exhausted.

Sam’s sudden absence leaves Dean free to be annoyed at other things. He’s pretty sure it isn’t an improvement, especially when his thoughts turn to Cas, who’s nowhere to be seen. They’ve been gone for days, but Cas can’t even bother to care that Dean is back, apparently. He supposes Cas is probably still in Sam’s room watching shit on Netflix. He’d bet money on it, actually. After all, last he heard, Cas was in the middle of binge-watching Daredevil.

He knows he’s being petty and mean, but all he can think is that he’s Cas’ second choice over a show about a dude who lives in just as much of a moral gray area as they do. He could understand Cas wanting to watch Captain America or something, he tells himself, but this? This show that’s so like their life? Why bother?

He unpacks his clothes and showers and changes into his pajamas, and he spends the entire time being vaguely, childishly jealous of Sam and of a damn fictional character. When he gets back to his room to find Cas hovering outside the doorway, though, he feels more than a little contrite.

Especially when Cas smiles softly and says, “Hello, Dean.”

“Hey,” Dean says, swatting Cas on the arm as he steps past him into his room. “What’ve you been up to?” he asks, innocently, like he doesn’t know or care and definitely isn’t preparing himself to be upset about the answer.

“I was praying with Sam,” Cas says. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Dean says, before his brain has fully processed what Cas said. “Wait. What?”

“I was praying,” Cas repeats, stepping into the room. “With Sam.”

Dean watches as Cas wanders into his space, settling himself at the edge of Dean’s bed. He’s momentarily stunned into silence. When his voice finally catches up with him, it brings all of his lingering resentment with it. “Great,” he says, still standing, looking at Cas accusingly. “Now you, too? What happened to not counting on God for help?”

“I don’t,” Cas says, simply. “But it’s not my place to invalidate Sam’s faith. He’s my friend.” Cas shrugs, and there’s a finality to it, like he’s given all the explanation the situation warrants.

“I just…” Dean says, throwing his arms wide. He realizes, distantly, that it’s probably unfair of him to unload on Cas like this, but he knows, much more immediately, that it isn’t going to stop him. “Why does he bother? Even if God exists, with all the shit he’s pulled, he doesn’t deserve any devotion from us. Sam should know that better than anyone.”

Cas looks up at him curiously, and Dean withers a bit in the face of his calm scrutiny. “You shouldn’t be so hard on him,” Cas says, not unkindly. “After all, you prayed to me.”

Dean feels every inch of his skin flush. “I--you didn’t. Did you--” he stammers, as Cas raises an eyebrow. He’s remembering all the sarcastic prayers he said in front of Sam, the I-pray-to-Castiel-to-get-his-feathery-ass-down-here kinds, and mentally contrasting them with all the ones he prayed to Cas in private. He’s thinking of the pathetic, desperate pleas he’s always half hoping Cas has forgotten and half hoping Cas has stored away for safekeeping, waiting for the right moment to dig them up, force them at Dean, demand he finally explain what they mean. Dean blinks slowly, swallows, fixes his gaze on the ceiling. “Did you tell Sam that?”

Cas heaves a sigh that’s more exasperated than disappointed. “No,” he says. “That, too, is not my place. Besides,” he adds, “I suspect those prayers weren’t meant for Sam’s consumption. Much like Sam’s prayers were not intended for yours.”

“I mean. Yeah,” Dean admits. “But that--it’s different.”

“Is it?” Cas asks, fixing Dean with a look that pins him to the spot. When he continues, though, he looks down at his hands where they’re folded in his lap, brow furrowed. “I…‘pulled a lot of shit,’ too. There were times when I heard your prayers but refused to listen. I certainly wasn’t always worthy of devotion. I didn’t deserve your faith.” When he looks up at Dean, there’s something distant and sad about it that Dean hates. “You know that better than anyone, I suspect,” Cas says.

“I--” Dean says, denial on his lips before he catches himself. He forgets, sometimes, in the face of who Cas is now. Forgets who he was, the things he’s done. He wants to tell Cas it isn’t true, but the undeniable reality is that Dean has been disappointed both by God and by Cas, and the latter hurt a hell of a lot worse.

He doesn’t want to think about that, though, so instead he thinks of the way he had continued praying to Cas, anyway. Prayed to him every night in purgatory, even. Prayed in spite of everything. He remembers what it felt like, that raw hope, that helpless vulnerability, that perpetual desire to believe that Cas would come back to him. That he was worth coming back for.

He remembers the way the prayers felt in his throat, the way they sounded when he spoke the words out loud. Sam’s prayer sounded a lot like that, now that he thinks about it.

If Sam’s faith in God or some vague higher power or whatever the hell else is anything like Dean’s faith in Cas, just as full of love and hope and longing, just as inexplicable...Well. Dean supposes he really can’t fault Sam for that.

“I prayed to you after the angels fell,” Dean says, quietly, as a placeholder for all the other things he doesn’t know how to say, as evidence of the faith he can’t talk himself out of. “Before I prayed to all of the other angels. I prayed to you.”

He means it as reassurance, but when Cas looks up at him, his expression is tired and pained.

“I was human,” Cas says. “I couldn’t hear you. Even had I heard, I wouldn’t have been able to help. I--”

“No, Cas,” Dean interrupts. “I didn’t pray for you to fix Sam. Not that I would have turned down the offer if you could’ve, but I was just...praying for you to be there with me.” He shifts uncomfortably on his feet at the admission, but he’s come this far, and Cas’ expression has transformed into something that looks dangerously close to hope, so he soldiers on. “And now you’re here, right? So I guess Sam’s not so stupid for praying, after all. I’ll lay off.”

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas says, smiling up at him.

Dean rolls a shoulder in half a shrug, forcing nonchalance. “Yeah, well, you know. Let he without sin cast the first stone or whatever.”

Cas hums thoughtfully, considering Dean for a moment before he pats the bed next to him. “Sit with me?”

Dean figures he has nothing to lose, after that admission, so he sits next to Cas, close enough that their knees are touching, but not so close that their thighs press against one another. He looks down at the floor between his feet and wonders if Cas understands what all of it means, the breadth and depth of it.

“You can still pray to me, if you’d like,” Cas says, voice low, like it’s a confession of his own.

Dean thinks: Of course he understands. Maybe he always has. He turns his head to the side, stares at the side of Cas’ face. He says, “Cas…”

“I can’t promise I’ll be able to answer all of them,” Cas says, still looking at his hands. “I certainly can’t ‘mojo’ away the darkness.” He looks up, meeting Dean’s eyes. “But I would listen.”

Dean’s throat works as he tries to formulate a response to that, tries to achieve some level of coherence while he’s trapped by Cas’ earnest gaze. He finally has to look away, to drag a hand over his face, laughing awkwardly. “I mean. I could, yeah. Thanks for the offer. But I kind of prefer shouting down the hall, you know?” He can see Cas’ puzzled frown out of the corner of his eye. He says, “It just. If I can do that, it means you’re still around.”

There it is, in his peripheral vision: Cas’ expression shifting back into that look of fond wonder. He says, with a smile in his voice, “I’m not sure Sam will approve.”

Dean smiles, bumping Cas’ knee with his own. He says, carefully, “Maybe you’ll just have to stay closer, then. So I don’t have to shout.”

Cas goes very still beside him, and for a second Dean wonders if out of all the shit he’s said tonight, that’s the thing that finally crossed the line. But then Cas is saying, just as carefully, “All right.”

Dean closes his eyes, and as he releases a breath, he nods shakily. He can feel Cas’ eyes on his face, even though he can’t see him. Next thing he knows, he can feel Cas shifting closer, and then there’s the brush of Cas’ fingers as he takes Dean’s hand in his own. He leans over, reaching across to rest his other hand against the side of Dean’s face, palm warm against his skin. Dean keeps his eyes closed and lets Cas guide him until their foreheads are pressed together.

“Maybe just one more prayer?” he says, before he can talk himself out of it, before he gets too lost in the way Cas is stroking one thumb over the curve of his cheekbone, the other over the ridges of his knuckles.

“I’m listening,” Cas says.

“Castiel,” Dean starts, whispering into the scant few inches between them. “I need you here. I want you here. I don’t want to do this alone.” He pauses for a second, smiling tentatively. “Amen.”

Dean can feel Cas’ smile as he presses a kiss to the corner of his jaw. “This is a prayer I can grant,” Cas says, voice warm and close. “So be it.”


End file.
